The Curtain Falls

Abstract

Before adjourning the last session of the Congress on December 14, Metternich, Nesselrode, and Bernstorff signed a circular dispatch, drafted by Gentz, to be sent to their ministers at the various courts of Europe. This circular gave a résumé of the results of the Congress as well as a commentary on them which took the form of declarations on Italy, the Near East and Greece, and Spain. These pronouncements clearly illustrate the contempt with which the three eastern courts regarded liberal movements and representative politica l institutions.²

The Holy alliance… is per se a public nuisance. It is impossible [for] a confederacy of kings… to dictate laws to nations without exciting… the indignation of every free country… [and] sowing seeds of civil war in the very countries with which they interfered, in order, as they pretended, to establish tranquillity.

Lord Archibald Hamilton, March 27, 1823.¹